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Existentially quantified procedures: A mechanism for abstracting type in dynamic typing constructs

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Book cover Database Programming Languages (DBPL 1997)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1369))

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Abstract

Existential quantification of procedures is introduced as a mechanism for languages with dynamic typing. It allows abstraction over types whose representations require to be manipulated at run time. Universal quantification, the mechanism normally associated with procedural type abstraction, is shown to be unsuitable for this style of abstraction. For many such procedures only a single type specialisation is correct, hence the analogy with existential quantification from predicate logic. For any invocation of an existentially quantified procedure, the run-time system will require to maintain a single type representation for which the abstracted type stands. Existential quantification represents a class of ad hoc polymorphism, where operations over values of the abstracted type may behave differently according to the actual specialisation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Glasgow, Scotland

    Richard Connor

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  1. Richard Connor
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Sophie Cluet Rick Hull

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Connor, R. (1998). Existentially quantified procedures: A mechanism for abstracting type in dynamic typing constructs. In: Cluet, S., Hull, R. (eds) Database Programming Languages. DBPL 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1369. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-64823-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-64823-2_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-64823-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68534-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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